Tuesday, 8 May 2012

Prog 1782 - A Weston Front.

Here's neutering Justice Department style! The glorious Chris Weston once again blows us away with this absolute stunner of a cover, depicting our favourite cadet Psi-Judge in a tussle with a Robo-Hound. I love this, the composition, the colour choices, the lighting effects, the action, even those damn pouches fer-christ-sakes, simply brilliant!

Chris is his usual modest self when discussing the cover. He says "Not much to say about this cover. It's a standard action scene / cliffhanger situation." Standard? Yeah, right!

"I've attached the reference material that Tharg sent me. As you can see, there isn't much in the way of background detail; I wasn't entirely sure what sort of location this was taken in. Because of this I was forced to eschew the usual insanely detailed city-scapes that usually typify my work. But that was no bad thing; it was probably best to concentrate the readers' attention on the foreground action."

The reference page sent by Tharg.

Artist: Steve Yeowell

Now, I must warn budding artists that the next few images may be a bit... disconcerting. Why? The images you are about to see are what Chris describes as 'Roughs.' Maybe we need to buy him a dictionary...

Above are Chris' roughs. Proof that he not a mortal man!

Chris has modified his way of working for this cover. He says "This is the first cover I've done that features my new approach to digital colouring. I no longer scan the black and white image in as a bitmap. Now I scan the art as a full colour, high res tiff. I find it helps the art look more "organic" and less "digital". More paint and less pixels! I like to see the artists' brushstrokes and the variations of ink coverage, not to mention some trace of paper grain."

Below are Chris' finished inks; sure enough you can see the paper, as well as his sublime brushwork.

Chris is a big fan of old skool Dredd, he says "One final word: I know this is a sign of my age and betrays my luddite tendencies, but I much prefer drawing the Mark One Lawgiver. In fact, I would really, really like to draw a one-off Dredd strip set in 2099 and go for a complete retro-McMahon look... exactly as he appeared in Prog 2..." Sounds good to me, are you listening Tharg?

While we're sending requests to the Mighty One, I'd like to suggest, as the Dark Judges have returned to the Big Meg, could we possibly have a Fear, Fire and Mortis cover by Chris Weston? I can only think of a handful of artists who could give Bolland a run for his money and Chris is easily one of them.

A massive thank you to Chris who has once again created a fantastic cover and been kind enough to write us a fascinating commentary. What a lovely guy! Please be sure to check out his blog here, and bombard Tharg with letters demanding a Weston-stylee Dark Judges cover!